by Amanda Milo
I’ll say this for the feisty female: I can’t fault her business principles.
The parade of bodies seems never-ending as more and more wind their way around the cart and into my canyon. I watch a multitude of colorful manes pass warily under my nose until I’m stunned. “Why are there so many?”
Beth laughs. When she sees I’m looking at her, she laughs harder. “You should see your face. You sound like it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to you.”
“Cog-damned near,” I reply, incredulous.
“Sorry, Bash,” Gracie tells me, not sounding particularly sorry at all. “These are the latest bunch of rescued humans and we can’t have them bored and shut up in the compound. They’re brand-spankin' new here, so try to play nice.”
“There better be no playing,” I warn. I stalk past them, grab a boulder, and heave it onto the nearest cart, sinking the thing a good handspan into the soil. “Humans, your task is as simple as I can make it: gather rock. Place rock on carts. Do not slow down. Do not stop. Do not get in my way.” It’s a speech I’ve given to each new batch of aliens as they’ve arrived. It’s a waste of time; it’s almost a guarantee that the majority won’t listen to what I’ve just said.
When no one moves, I drag a sigh up from all six of my toes and turn a patient glower on the whole sea of apprehensive faces. “Don’t tell me you've already grown confused about what you’re to do here.” I point a curved black claw down at the largest pile of rocks and bark, “TOIL!”
They scatter. They hunt for pebbles not much bigger than two of their hands. Which is fine. I’ve been forced to watch humans enough to know that they really can’t lift much more than what can fit in their hands. If they try to brave more, they tend to drop their rock and hurt themselves, and then there are tears.
Curse the tears.
This day, there had better be not one more cog-damned tear.
Blessedly, I finish the cart’s wheel patch with no further interruption. Then I move myself to rock collection. I’m reaching down for a boulder, doing my best to ignore the existence of all humankind, when a small, feminine hand crosses under mine for a pebble. Then, as if the hand realizes what Rakhii she’s reaching past, the limb draws back in a hurry.
I glance over, ready to crisp whatever hapless female set herself so close to me—but she backs away so quickly, not even I can find fault with her.
Incongruously, her retreat gets under my scales. It shouldn’t, yet as I load three more boulders I’m still thinking about her. A human.
I return to her area and surreptitiously observe her. She is ever-moving, and if she only selects small rocks, she makes up for this in the sheer amount she collects. In the time it takes her fellow humans to add a rock or two to their counts, this human’s stone accumulation is triple theirs.
With a pleased grunt, I return to my own tasks.
At midday, when the others begin squalling about taking their necessary breaks, the hardworking human I’m still vaguely curious about does not stop when her sisters do. Perspiration sheens on her, but she doesn’t even seem to slow. Her diligent ethic astounds me. Impresses me, even.
Surprising myself, I make my way to the watering station. I take two sleeves of hydration gel and interrupt the moiling human. “Here,” I grunt. It’s customary to rest during the extreme heat of the day, but the season is coming to a close and the temperatures are warm but tolerable. Still, I wouldn’t begrudge this one for sitting in the shade for a spell. She’s actually earned the privilege.
Darting a look at me from the corner of her eye, she doesn’t cross over herself to grab for the gel packet with her free hand. Instead, she sets down the rock she’d been holding, and as if I came to her with teeth bared, she very carefully draws my offer from my clawtips.
She brings it to her mouth, applies her set of alien teeth to the tab, and tears the pack open. All the while, she watches me.
With a nod, I leave her and take up my pickaxe. Out of this quarry we glean slabs and great boulders, and in order to collect these sections of rock, we have to chip and scrape and crack them from the canyon walls and floor. Breaking up the boulders for easier transport is done mainly by hand tools and hard work—as any of the made-brawny-by-rock-hewing hobs and Rakhii who are under my hand can attest.
Eventually, the heat of the day abates, and the humans return to the main shard and pebble piles without complaint. The chattering though. It’s unending, a soft gabbling noise in my ears all the day long. If they put half the effort into moving their hands as they do ratcheting their jaws, we’d clear this alien-infested pit of rocks.
But today, I don’t yell. I don’t yank any hobs off their feet and shake them until their wings snap wildly and the humans get frightened into silence. I don’t make any humans cry.
I restrain myself.
It hurts.
But there is so much smiling. Like this is some sort of visiting session, Rakhii, hobs, and humans alike twaddle on, seemingly happy. They do move rock, but they could do it a teveking sight faster. And silently. When I drop yet another boulder into the already-laden cart, I scan my gaze over the females milling about, trying to spot the one human in this crowd with sense. The one who wasn’t seeing her time here as a social assembly. The one who worked through the heat of the day, almost alongside me.
I don’t see her.
“Bash?”
My teeth set in irritation but my eyes keep scanning humans.
“Bash,” someone calls again. A male’s voice—Cyden, one of my long-time workers. He wouldn’t interrupt me unless a matter of importance has arisen, but I ignore him in favor of searching because where is she? She has to be among the others.
“Bash!” he calls again.
“What?” I bark. Fire blows from under my curled lips, escaping in bursts as I lacerate the air with my teeth on the word.
Cyden gestures. “You have a customer.”
My ears slap back. “A flaming pile of what now?” I follow where he points, and I find a Gryfala service—ten hobs—plus a teveking Gryfala standing in my quarry.
“Oh hells no,” I say.
Her service of hobs bristles, and the Gryfala’s eyes sharpen on mine.
Cyden, my capable employee—my hob employee, and therefore an excellent emissary for all transactions involving Gryfala—slides himself between me and them, and attempts to smooth over my words. “What he means to say,” he starts—
“Why are you here?” I ask bluntly. I don’t know this Gryfala, and I don’t want to. I want to see her gone as soon as possible. Gryfala have wandering eyes, and I don’t need to lose any hob workers to their appetites. “This isn’t a place for princesses.” I give the humans around me a disparaging eye. “We’ve had enough royal pains inflicted on us already.”
Allow me to pause here and explain. Gryfala are princesses in our world. The title of respect is acknowledged across the galaxy, actually, and humans somehow look enough like them that they were mistakenly identified as Gryfala. Many aliens who purchased humans at auction mistakenly believed them to be princesses and referred to them as such.
Why the title of respect stuck here, where we have real princesses to compare them to, I can’t fathom. It makes about as much sense as if we suddenly started referring to Hydruls (a water-spewing alien covered in feathers) as a Rakhii.
But rather than being offended, Gryfala—females famous for being so utterly aggressive to their gender that they can’t face another Gryfala without being moved to attack—find this farce of a title for humans quaint. Thus, males continue to refer and defer to the humans as if they were princesses in truth.
Now back to the Gryfala before me, the genuine princess currently wrecking my day. “I want to commission the building of a rookery,” she informs me, not put off in the slightest by my attitude. She should be threatening punishment for the way I just spoke to her, but instead, she’s eyeing me like she might be in the market for more than the original acquisition she came for.
She says this the same way a person would ask for an alien animal to sculpt a keepsake work of art. Like those abstract paintings made by a captive yitsky pressing its trunk to watercolor paper. (It’s an apt comparison. Humans grasp the concept of rookery building, but any one of the humans under my watch all lack the skill and ability to create anything that won’t come crumbling back down on their heads.)
I eye the Gryfala and her ridiculous request. Like the humans in my quarry are an army of little novelties. To her, this is exactly what they are.
I’m uncharacteristically offended on the humans’ behalf. Mostly to be contrary to a Gryfala’s wishes, but also because humans aren’t trained circus animals. No, they definitely aren’t that—Creator knows, circus animals are trainable.
This thought distracts me, because it’s customary for traveling circuses—a common enough business on planets other than the Gryfala’s—to beat their animals into behaving. Creator, if I were allowed to beat the humans, I might finally get some decent work out of them. And if I couldn’t, at least I’d be satisfied knowing I gave it my best effort. I’d be sure to be thorough.
So very thorough.
To the Gryfala, I marshal a monumental attempt at an impassive face so as not to betray how her appearance tweaks my sanguinary urges towards all females of her kind. Then I set her straight. “If you think to wait for humans to collect enough stone to build a rookery, then you’d better have devised a way to live about three extra lifetimes. Princess,” I tack on. On paper it would seem respectful, but I utter it in the same tone one might say you pus-weeping blight.
The Gryfala’s lashes lower, but her smile widens enough to reveal her fangs. Her wings flick slightly before they refold—feathers, not the leathery skin like her hobs. If one appreciated the overall appearance of a Gryfala, this one would be pleasing.
Then again, inarguably, they all are.
When her attractive lids (each one colored by hob-wing powder, probably expertly applied rather than marked so fetchingly by chance) rise enough to allow her eyes to meet mine, her gaze is intrigued, curious.
It’s making me uncomfortable. Meanwhile, her hobs are beginning to look alarmed by her interest in me—which only increases my sense of discomfort. My irritation flares, because I don’t become rattled anymore. I’m an older, wiser (and some would say more bitter) Rakhii. I do the rattling around here—literally, if I can get away with it.
I harden my tone. “I have a quarry to oversee. We’re done here unless you want bragging rights over a human-made model-sized tower—”
“I’ll take it,” the Gryfala interrupts. “Put me down for a human-built model.”
“—you… you’ll…” I’m stunned.
“Take it,” the Gryfala prompts, fangs still flashing, her smile turning playful. “And you, if you’re—”
I hold up a hand to silence her. I’m not even furious or outraged like I normally would be. Like I was certain I was about to be. Because my brain is turning this custom order over in my mind. It’s a bizarre request; Gryfalas prize precision, right down to the shape of the rocks that make up their rookeries. When building a fortress for a Gryfala, it’s a matter of course to cut each stone square. It’s time-consuming, it’s expensive, and it doesn’t matter how outlandish the need for this level of uniformity is (a rookery could be cobbled together with various sized stone, easily)—it’s necessary. Gryfala require painstaking accuracy in nearly all things.
Humans though simply do not see the world in the same way. They don’t mind all the little broken shards and odd bits of stone they collect being slapped into mortar and calling it a wall. Grudgingly, I can admit that they are like Rakhii in this openness they have towards simpler, more fluid design.
But this princess standing before me desires what the humans are having. She wants something built in a human-approved style, and she wants it made by their slow human hands. Why?
The novelty. It’s all about the novelty of it.
That’s what’s driving the Gryfala’s interest. She only wants something made by one of these new and strange aliens because they’re new and strange aliens.
She probably has the mistaken impression that they’re special.
From out of nowhere, as if the mere act of considering her kind conjured her, Gracie appears. “My team can create whatever you want.”
What a lie. Humans can’t so much as make it to their shifts on time. My ears slap back and my chest broadens with my breath because I’m about to bellow at her to remove herself before I toss her across the quarry (carrying a pup or not, I don’t care)—but then she looks the Gryfala dead in the eye and says “But it’s going to cost you.”
I pause.
The Gryfala has gone still, all her focus on perhaps the first human she’s ever spoken to. It’s peculiar, that humans look a fair bit like Gryfala. Plainer, sure, and more vulnerable, yes, but they are enough like them in appearance that you’d expect similar behaviors. Such as Gryfala-to-Gryfala aggression. Princesses often leave rookeries younger than their sires would prefer because the interactions with their dams (i.e., the whole of their relationship) have become untenable. Dangerous, even. Gryfala will fight viciously if allowed close enough to each other.
A good deal of a hobs’ job is to act as a buffer between Gryfala when the need arises. Otherwise, the female gender of their race avoids each other with extreme care.
Gracie doesn’t appear affected in the slightest at the sight of this princess. Then again, I’ve witnessed her interacting with her mate’s dam, and never have I spied aggression between the pair of them. I’d venture to say there’s a degree of maternal affection on the part of that Gryfala, there absolutely has to be—after all, she is affording the inordinate expense to create an entire village for the herd of kept humans to become inhabitresses of.
But this Gryfala before Gracie now is of no relation by matehood. Not that being a kinswoman wouldn’t betoken danger. As I said, if the Gryfala viewed humans as rivals, then an attack would be imminent.
Instead, the Gryfala appears only very curious, and seeing a human next to a real princess not only shows their surface similarities, but also highlights their vast differences starkly. Polished, elegant, dangerous; from their wingtips to their claws and fangs and shrewd, ultra-glamorous eyes, Gryfala are made to draw attention, to wield their power.
In contrast, Gracie’s form is far, far smaller, for one thing. Shorter. Stockier. A keen intelligence shines in her eyes, sure, and I wouldn’t show her my belly if she were holding a knife—but she’d have to actually be holding a knife for me to worry about physical harm. Tiny teeth, most of them flat, no venom. A mere human like Gracie can’t even hiss properly.
Where the two match is their fashion. Gracie designed her own clothing, making it either by her own hands or her hob army whom she orders to sew things for her like they’re her personal males-in-waiting.
Gryfalas are attracted to bright colors and shine, and Gracie has employed both in her costumery. She’s chosen to dress mainly in black, in a durable fabric with fire-gold accents that complement and showcase her mate’s azure-streaked wingmarkings.
As the authentic princess studies Gracie, each of her hobs are watching her, just as wary as me.
Gracie though remains oblivious to the potential danger, or she’s choosing to disregard it. “How big you want this model? I’ll tell you what the cost of our labor is, and our partner Bash here will figure the cost of the materials.”
For the next several clicks, I can only marvel at Gracie’s handling of the deal. In the end, the Gryfala flies off seeming quite satisfied with her purchase, and Gracie is triumphant.
Hells, I’m triumphant too—teveking jubilant! When the
Gryfala and her service of hobs are specks on the horizon, I turn to the human beside me and for the first time, view her with no malice. “Female, you did well.”
Dohrein, with his wing cupped partway around his mate’s back, eyes me. His brow also rises a fraction, betraying his surprise, but Gracie accepts my compliment as if it was a natural, expected thing. “Fork yeah I did!” She shoots her hand up towards me, fingers somewhat relaxed—and then she hovers her hand in the air. To a nearby Rakhii, Gracie calls, “Hear that, Akita? I didn’t use any curse words.”
“Congratulations,” the Rakhii says. But his name is Hotahn, not Akita, as Gracie sometimes calls him. I don’t know the meaning behind the nickname. I haven’t asked either.
I consider Gracie’s still-raised palm, her fingertips. I see scrapes; nothing severe, but it’s clear she’s been working rock. Even wearing gloves as often as they do, human skin is so fragile, minor injuries like Gracie’s are common. I’m so pleased with her handling of the sale I just do as she clearly expects: I graciously spit on her.
Gracie’s hand flinches, and her arm stiffens at the elbow. “Whoa! Not what I was going for, but… thanks.” Eyes bemused, she flattens her lips and brings her other hand up to touch her palms, spreading my saliva to treat any surface damage she has.
Curious and in a mood to be tolerant of her alien ways, I ask, “What were you ‘going for’ if not healing?”
It’s her mate who answers. “Studies on human contact show that gestures with touch enhance camaraderie among their people.” Dohrein’s wing slides around her back until his talon hooks itself over her hip like a creepishly long, clawed thumb, drawing her into his side.
My smile turns into a frown. I turn it on Gracie. “Your aim was to touch me?”
Gracie rolls her eyes. “It’s not like you’re not getting the anti-bonding drugs. A high five doesn’t make us married, dipstick.”
